


She's the One

by JaneShadow



Category: She's the Man (2006)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-23
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-08-06 07:35:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 20,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16383932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaneShadow/pseuds/JaneShadow
Summary: It's been almost two years since the infamous Debutante's Ball and the Cornwall vs. Illyria game. Viola is in her first year of college. Olivia has just broken up with Sebastian... three days before prom. She has a plan.





	1. Chapter 1

"It's only going  
to be about 2 weeks, come on, Olivia."

"This isn't just some minor event that we are talking about that you can skip out on, like the first day of school! You promised me that you would be here for my prom!"

Sebastian's jaw clenched tight and I could tell that I'd lost him now. He had a way of letting his stubbornness settle in, and shutting his mind off in such a way that I could no longer say anything else on the subject. This was one of those moments. Even if I begged and pleaded, and offered to do anything for him that he wanted (which was plenty, believe me, and all of it was disgusting), he would stay on mental lock-down simply to make his point. When it was clear that I wasn't going to keep begging, he leant down to pick up his guitar case.

"I'll call you from San Diego." He mumbled, not looking up at me. "We probably won't have any cell signal on the ship."

"Sebastian…"

"Don't."

My cheeks began to burn and I could feel my eyes growing moist with tears, that he didn't even have the decency to acknowledge by looking at. He threw a shirt into his backpack, and stepped around me to walk out the door of his bedroom.

"If you leave…" I started to say to the back of his head, but choked on my words. He turned just slightly and I composed myself to finish. "If you leave, it really will be over between us. Don't expect me to be here when you get back, this time."

Sebastian stayed there in his doorway as though he was letting my words sink in. He stared down the hall in the direction of his twin sister Viola's empty room. Finally, he shrugged. "If you can't support my dreams, I'm better off without you."

And that is how my relationship with Sebastian Hastings came to its bitter, abrupt end, three days before my senior prom.

I managed to get back to my dorm room at Illyria and even check my email before I broke down into a fit of hysterical crying. As I sprawled out, face down, on my bed, it occurred to me that Sebastian never had any intention of taking me to prom. It was quite an unexpected revelation that seemed far too insightful considering the position I was in. Fortunately my roommate and her friends weren't around to watch me bawl my eyes out. Not that they would have thought any less of me, but it always embarrassed me to be so vulnerable and make others feel uncomfortable.

When I couldn't stop after 20 minutes, I got a bottle of water from my mini-fridge and splashed some on my face. Nevermind getting my clothes wet and making my mascara run. It seemed to do the trick. My grieving was over, and I felt proud enough of myself to say that Sebastian Hastings wasn't worth more than half an hour of spent tears.

I went to my desk and back into my email inbox to review my messages and see which ones needed my urgent attention. One was from Kevin Schultz, Sebastian's close friend and classmate at Cornwall. The three of us had gone to the beach in Kevin's Jeep twice over the summer and he was just now getting around to sending me the pictures that I'd been begging him for. I tried to skip through them quickly without looking too closely at the ones where Seb and I were cuddling on the sand, or watching sunsets. At the end of the attachments were pictures from their graduation ceremony. It was hard to believe that he had been out of high school for nearly 9 months and had shown virtually no drive or ambition to do anything except play with his band in pathetic dead-end venues. Meanwhile, Viola had graduated at the same time and gone on to join a semi-pro soccer team on top of starting her first year of college. Of course just because they were twins didn't mean they had to be exactly the same, but sometimes I wished Sebastian were more like his sister. More like the Sebastian I wanted to be with in the first place.

I closed the email and browsed absent-mindedly through my inbox. Every message I had from Sebastian was a forward or mass-mailer announcing when his band's next show was for whoever cared to go. It wasn't really his fault if they only got crap shows (and this cruise ship stint out of San Diego was no exception), but at least he could have the sanity to recognize when important events should come first.

Like prom.

It was bad enough when he told me that he wouldn't be taking me to his senior prom because he needed to be in Detroit for a songwriter's convention. I had thought at the time that it was all right if I didn't go to his, because that was his choice to make, and at least he would still take me when it was my turn. In a way, I should have had the sense to see it coming, after all the times he'd put himself before me.

I didn't realize how long I'd been staring at my computer screen, zoning out, until my roommate Holly burst in the door, her bubbly friends in tow.

"Hey Olivia, you're not studying, are you?" Friend #1 asked in the least concerned tone possible.

"No, just replying to some old emails." I forced a smile in her direction.

Holly stepped over to me and leaned in close. "Oh babe… have you been crying? Are you ok? You look like you've been crying."

Deep sigh. I was not about to cry all over again in front of three gossiping sorority girl potentials. "I had a minor meltdown… but I'm ok. I just… lost my date to prom. No big deal."

Their unison sympathy "awwww" was fake as plastic.

Friend #2 hopped up and sat on my computer desk. She had the nerve to put her ass on top of my chemistry book, yet she had never formally introduced herself to me. "I bet you can find a replacement before prom, it's only a few days away. There are still a lot of guys without dates. Blue Ridge's prom isn't even this weekend, it's in three weeks because they had a lot of snow days this year. I bet a lot of guys from there will be available."

"I don't want to go with just anyone, I want to go with Sebastian."

Holly scrunched her nose up at me. "He ditched you three days before prom? What a little bastard. Where is he going this time, to a battle of the bands in a garage somewhere?"

"Close, his band is going to play Simply Red cover songs for 2 weeks on a cruise ship."

All three girls made angry "hmph!" noises, even though they clearly didn't know who Simply Red was. At least they were trying.

"Hey, did you all hear about Rachel, she spent six hundred dollars on her corsage and her mom spent over ten grand on her dress, limo, and reservations. She is totally not even going to go now, because her mom lost the internet bill and forgot to pay it, so Rachel is punishing her by making her eat the ten grand and not go to prom."

"Oh-em-gee are you serious?!"

I turned back to my computer and blocked out the squealing exchange between the three. Mentally, I kicked myself for telling them anything at all, knowing they would just gossip about me around the whole school. Although they had made me feel slightly better just by listening… despite that they clearly didn't care, it felt good to get it off my chest.

When the girls started pouncing around the room 5 minutes later, yelping out "you're a slut! No, you're a slut!" I decided it was time to take a walk around campus and clear my head. Sebastian wasn't worth all this fuss. As I strolled down near the oval, I subconsciously began to wish that there was a boy I truly felt something for. Not just a resigned acceptance of our relationship, as I'd had before with the guys I'd dated, but the actual kind of adoration that makes your heart stop when they come near. The kind of feeling that leaves you breathless in anticipation when you know you'll be together soon. I had felt that way once before, but it wasn't real. Or rather, he wasn't real.

I pulled my hoodie tighter around me and started to jog leisurely toward the soccer field. I needed to remember, and I needed to feel close to someone I hadn't been near in a very long time.


	2. Chapter 2

A Proposal

It was a shot in the dark, and I was scared shitless. But I had to do it.

Call it pride, call it a fantasy, call it my secret desire to know what would happen.

I had put it off for as long as possible (the actual asking, that is). Yet something in the back of mind kept telling me that the situation seemed too perfect. In a way, I was much happier about the prom than I had been when I originally thought Sebastian was still going to go. It seemed as though fate were making it all happen. After my little run down to the soccer field, I'd gone back to my dorm and found an email waiting for me.

_Hey!_

_Mom is making me come home from school for the weekend to go to some junior league fund-raiser. Lame, right? She said it's called Big Mentor and I have to talk to sixth graders about being debutantes. Even lamer. Are you going to be there? Maybe we can sneak in some really forbidden and scandalous items. Like… pie._

_Give me a call if you aren't gonna make it and we'll hang out while I'm home. Otherwise, I'll see you there. With key lime and whipped cream, baby._

_Viola_

It was almost as if this was the way it was all meant to turn out. I tried not to let myself think that, because it seemed like I was destining myself for disappointment, but it was hard to ignore the idea that I was being forced into one direction by the fates.

"Come on, this is easy. We're friends. Friends just call each other. That's not weird." I whispered to myself.

Holly and crew were nowhere to be found and I had the room all to myself. Which was good, because I'd been staring at my cell phone and psyching myself up audibly for about 45 minutes.

The problem was, Viola and I weren't really friends, at all. After she "came out" as a girl and returned to Cornwall to play soccer on the boy's team for the end of her junior and senior years, we pretty much never spoke. There were no hard feelings or anything, just that she was always hanging around the jocks and the jock-worshippers, and I… I became a bit of a loner. Turns out the real Sebastian was a lot more unpopular than the fake Sebastian had been, and his girlfriend was considered equally uncool by most. I saw Viola around a lot, and we were always friendly. Occasionally I bumped into her if I happened to be over at one of their respective parents' houses hanging out, but those were rare events. She stopped coming to the mixed-sex junior league functions after our debutante ball, which clearly had something to do with her avoidance of Duke Orsino.

That's why her email had been a surprise to me, and seemed so extraordinary. Why now, after nearly two years, would she decide to contact me out-of-the-blue? Maybe Sebastian had told her about leaving me like a jerk and she felt guilty for his behavior. Or maybe she knew it was prom weekend and she secretly was fishing to see if I was still going with her brother.

"This is ridiculous!" I exclaimed to my teddy bear, Meriwether Lewis. "I should just call her, already. Right? Ok, I'll just call her."

Then it happened, I was dialing.

The phone was ringing.

"Hello?"

"Hey uh… Viola. This is Olivia Lennox."

"Hey! How are you? Wow, I just emailed you about… an hour ago, or something."

Oh shit, she was going to think I was desperate. Or creepy. "Yeah… did you? That's funny. I mean, I knew you did. I read it."

"Sweet! So you're going to this Big Mentor thing on Saturday? I don't want to go but I really owe my mom for getting me a new laptop for school. It's not just a regular laptop, I mean it is way tight. I can use it for gaming and so I bought this FIFA game which looks bad-ass with my video card and 3 megabytes of ram, but it also has a webcam…"

I smiled slightly and remembered how much I loved Viola-babble. I'd thought maybe it was something she had only done to imitate her brother, but after dating Sebastian for a while I realized that he never babbled. If he was nervous, he went silent, the opposite of his sister. Of course, that meant she was nervous talking to me now. She didn't have any reason to be, maybe there really was something going on.

"…so, that's the story of my laptop. I used it to email you."

"Sounds really awesome. You're right, you owe your mom big time."

Viola chuckled quietly. "Are you teaching any sort of classes for the kids this weekend? They asked my mom if I would teach soccer drills, which doesn't sound like something the junior league would approve of, but it seems like they are branching out a little more."

"To be honest, I hadn't even heard about it until your email. I've been too busy getting ready for…" I paused and took a deep breath, "prom."

"Wow, prom is this weekend? Really? That's nuts. Where did you get your dress?" Her voice sounded genuinely surprised. If she did already know, she was hiding it well.

"Just… a wedding tailoring shop. Something Blue for Brides, I think it's called."

She whistled into the phone. "Nice. You went all out." There was a brief pause. "Hey wait. Isn't my brother on a cruise ship somewhere heading toward Mexico? Did he know it was prom weekend?"

I tried to reply to her, but found myself choking back tears instead.

"Oh shit. Olivia, I'm sorry. That was dumb."

"No, it's ok. It's not your fault. You didn't even know it was prom, so… yeah."

"I don't know what to say. I guess, that's my brother."

I realized that she must not have known about any of this, otherwise she wouldn't have brought it up and then berated herself for it. "You don't have to make excuses for him, I know that his band is really important. It's ok. I didn't mean to be weird or anything."

She cleared her throat. "Well, I really did want to hang out with you this weekend. I know we haven't usually, before. But this will be my first time back at home since school started and I realized that I miss seeing you. Around. You know? I don't have class on Friday so I'm actually flying in tomorrow afternoon. If you need to talk or just chill we can hang whenever you want. Or if… it's weird or something, that's cool. No pressure. No worries. Just cool… coooooooooool."

"It's not weird, I really miss you, too." I felt myself blushing a little, but for no apparent reason. "Maybe we could get together tomorrow night. There's some stuff I was hoping we could talk about."

"Sounds good to me, as long as you don't mind, uh… picking me up. My car is here at school."

"No of course I don't mind. Are you staying with your mom, then?"

"You know it." She blurted out, in a bit of her old 'boy' voice.

"All right," I stifled a giggle, "we can go to Cesario's then, at 6."

We made a bit more small-talk about school and the latest news around Illyria before my phone started beeping to tell me I had new voicemail. We agreed again that I would be picking her up at 6 and said goodbye until then. When I saw that my voicemail was from Sebastian, I wished that I hadn't hung up with Viola after all. How could I go from nearly bursting into tears, to giggling and laughing and feeling elated all within seconds? Something about the silly way that Viola said everything, like she was constantly making a joke she didn't even know about, just could put me in a good mood instantly.

The message from Sebastian was cold and brief. I didn't expect much else, he simply called to tell me that the ship was leaving the dock and he would soon lose his signal. He sounded quite irritated and made a snappy remark about me not answering my phone.

Normally I'd be broken up about him talking to me that way, but all I could think about was how excited I was for tomorrow to come.


	3. Chapter 3

Skirt  
and blouse? Too formal.

Summer dress? Too breezy.

Slacks and a tshirt? Too boring.

I stood in front of my closet holding up outfit after outfit in front my mirror, trying to decide exactly what to wear. Nothing seemed right for a casual bite of pizza between friends. Maybe that was because I was taking it too seriously, as my roommate Holly brusquely pointed out.

"Please tell me you're not still trying to pick out something to wear tonight?" She jabbed at me rudely for the umpteenth time. "And why are you even hanging out with Sebastian's weird tranny sister, anyway?"

I gave her the worst glare I could muster and fought back my righteous fury. "She's not a 'tranny', what is wrong with you?!"

"Well let me see, she dressed up like a BOY and perved on all the girls in this school for weeks. Everyone knows she's a creepy tranny!"

"You never even met her, you had mono the whole time she was here. Maybe you should find something out on your own, for once, and not listen to the bullshit that your little posse makes up."

Holly snapped her mouth shut and looked as though she was thinking hard on what to say that could disprove me. Before she got a chance, I blurted out: "By the way, you know that the only reason your little friend Rachel talks so much shit about Viola is because she made an ass of herself in front of everyone by flirting with her. Viola might have been dressed like her brother, but she didn't have to be so nice to save your friends from total embarrassment, since they practically took their clothes off every time she walked by. So shove it up your ass, Holly!" I didn't mean for that last part to come out… but it had. Judging from her face, she was as shocked to hear it out-loud as I was.

Fortunately for me, she jumped up and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her so hard that a picture fell off the wall. That left me to get back to my outfits.

Maybe it was the sudden relief I felt at having defended Viola's honor so vehemently, but it seemed the "right" outfit popped out at me from my closet. A tight pair of jeans I had just bought and needed breaking in, so they still fit me just a tad bit too tight. Along with a thermal-under-tshirt combination that would keep me warm enough but not look bulky. Now I was truly ready for a friendly, no pressure dinner, with my casual buddy.

If it was so casual, then why was I getting cold sweats? And why did I spend over an hour doing my make-up? And why did I start getting ready over three hours before I was meant to pick her up? As a result, I was too excited to wait, and I got to the Hastings' house a quarter before 6.

The walkway up to their door was wet from the rain, I was glad that I'd opted not to wear heels at the last minute. Call me strange, but I always liked it that Viola was just a little bit taller than me when we stood side-by-side.

Daphne Hastings, the twins' mother, answered the door. As always, she was overdressed for simply being at home with her daughter on a weeknight. I'd been to their home unannounced before to see Sebastian, and never caught Daphne in an "off" moment.

Since I was balls-early, Viola was still upstairs getting ready and I was forced into junior league small-talk with her mother. I was surprised to learn that Daphne was still heavily involved despite both her children being too old for the league.

"My mother only goes to the major meetings now that I've already had my coming out. She will probably start getting more involved again when my youngest sister gets to sixth grade."

She looked extremely interested in this news, for some odd reason. "You do have two younger brothers. You know, she could always come to the meetings to find proper ladies for them to date. I just don't think you can find suitable girls outside of the league, they are always lacking in manners and etiquette."

I heard Viola's door opening and I balanced my attention between Mrs. Hastings and the staircase. "I haven't spoken to her about the Big Mentor program running this weekend, but I may call her tomorrow…" I stopped speaking for good reason. I'd forgotten completely what I was talking about.

Viola Hastings, looking quite unlike I had ever seen her before, was descending her stairs slowly and magnificently. She'd waved and lightened her hair since the last time we met; now it landed just below her shoulders in loose curls. Surprisingly, she wasn't wearing anything special. In fact, her tshirt and jeans combination was not at all unlike one that I had said "no" to when I was going through outfits earlier. But it was different on her. Everything was different on her. Something definitely had changed her and it was much more than hair, makeup, or clothes. I tried to put my finger on it, but Daphne jerked me out of my embarrassing stare-fest.

"Please do tell your mother. We would love to have her there this weekend. She is more than welcome, and perhaps could bring a skill or project to share with the girls. Does she know any handicrafts?"

"Thanks mom. We're going." Viola grabbed my arm and pulled me rapidly toward the door before I could blink. Her mother called out something after us, but it was too muffled for me to make out.

As soon as we were to the walkway, Viola let go of my arm and we walked at a normal pace beside one another.

"It's great you picked me up, you sure it's ok?"

"Of course! It's not like, a long way or anything. I think you live closer to Illyria than you do to Cornwall." My voice squeaked slightly. I prayed she didn't notice, and busied myself with getting into the car and starting the engine.

"Yeah, it used to be the opposite when we lived at my dad's. They are way out in the plateau." She fiddled with her seatbelt for a minute, then looked at me and smiled. "I'm sorry again for being so dorky on the phone. If you don't want to talk about prom OR my stupid brother tonight, that's ok with me. We can talk about anything you want. Like ferrets, for example. Or Harry Potter. Or-"

"It's fine, really." I tried my hardest not to burst out laughing at her. She really had no clue that she was being hilarious. "I actually was going to talk to you about prom, when we get there."

"Nice, I'm psyched. Maybe later you could show me your dress and shoes! I was thinking, if you are still planning to go, I could help you get ready or something. You know, like do your hair."

"Yeah, I'd love that."

We smiled at each other (warmly? Was it warm, or did I imagine that?), and I pulled my car out onto the road. On the way to Cesario's, Viola told me about her strange roommate at college who had a daily ritual of cleaning her braces very loudly. I hardly said a word and simply laughed along with her stories, feeling comfortable and relaxed. It was like nothing had ever happened, and we were two best friends just hanging out like usual. Somewhere along the road I had an epiphany – the person I'd been waiting and hoping to see emerge one day from Sebastian for nearly two years never did, because it was Viola.

When I pulled into a parking space outside our old hang out, Viola leaned over towards me and mumbled out in her 'boy' voice: "Brings back some mem'ries, don't it, sweet…" She stammered and quickly looked away. "Uh… sorry. When I talk to you, I forget… stuff."

"Don't worry, I forget, too."

She appeared noticeably relieved, and we both went inside.

Once we found a place to sit (a booth, in the corner, away from the bubbly Illyria cheerleading crowds), I remembered that the food there had never been very impressive. In fact, the service wasn't very good either. We sat for over half an hour talking without any waitresses even acknowledging us. Yet for some strange reason, Cesario's was consistently "the place" to be. Finally one girl walked by and tossed two menus at us, I guess so at least we would have something to read while we sat and starved to death.

"Are any of the mini pizzas here actually good? I remember half of them tasting like cardboard and the other half were grease-pits."

Viola scrunched up her nose. "I think the chicken salad is edible, and some of the appetizers probably won't kill you. Can't say the same for the sausage supreme slice, which I ate one time back in junior year and ended up in the bathroom for like a week. It was naaaaaasty."

"Thanks, I'll be sure to avoid anything with sausage. Why don't we split a chicken salad, a plate of mozzarella sticks, and bar-be-que chicken wings."

"Damn, serious? You really eat that stuff? I remember back in high school you were all about green salads and celery."

I found myself rolling my eyes to that. "I was pretty hung-up on all those diets, but now I figure it's worth it to spend an extra hour in the gym now and again, in exchange for eating anything I want."

"Well," she peered across the table and looked me over, "you sure still look fantastic. In a… athletic, way."

I couldn't stop myself from blushing, and she was doing the same, quite heavily.

"I mean, that is… that maybe you could show me some of your moves. No, not moves… work-outs. No, no, not work-outs. Oh man. You want to order? How about food? I find it's best if I put things in my mouth constantly, so that it's harder for me to speak. Ever."

"Food sounds great." I tried to smile reassuringly, but I couldn't shake the thought of how adorable she had looked while backtracking. Something inside me wanted to dig a little deeper, to see her face looking that way all night. I knew I should let her off the hook, but I couldn't manage to. "You know… you've done that a few times now."

She stared intently at her menu. "Done what? Ooh, they have cheese fries."

"Said things to me like you're still dressed up in your brother's clothes. If I weren't looking right at you, I'd think you were Sebastian. Not your actual brother, Sebastian, but the one I first met and… became friends with."

"You noticed that too, huh? Weird." Viola paused for a second, then sighed and set down her menu. "It's just really strange to talk to you and not try to act the way I'm used to acting around you."

"What way is that?"

"Just trying to be cool every second, and trying to sound tough and impressive. I've known you for years, so I should be over it by now, right? But I still find myself saying the same dumb things to get you to think I'm awesome."

"I do think you're awesome."

For a genuine, vulnerable moment, we looked into each other's eyes. She broke away first, going back to her menu.

"Thanks. Of course I think you're awesome too, or I wouldn't try so hard to be cool, right? Anyway, I wish we'd hung out more often during senior year, so maybe I would have figured out in some tiny way how to be normal."

"I'm glad we're hanging out now. I was going through a weird faze last year. I doubt we would have had very much fun together."

Before she could ask for details, our disappearing waitress managed to find it in her busy heart to grace us with her presence. "You ready or you need a minute?" She barked rudely through her strongly-scented cherry gum.

"No, if we send you away, we might never see the sun again." Viola mumbled. "We are ready to order! How about a large chicken salad, and the super appetizer plate."

Our waitress managed to begrudgingly take our order before traipsing off, leaving us alone once more.

"Do you think we'll get our food before 9 o'clock?"

I checked my watch. It was nearly 7:30. Time was really soaring by. "I hope so. Do you need to get home or something? We can ditch them and pick up McDonald's. I'm sure she hasn't put our order in yet."

"No, no. Not at all. I was just thinking it might be cool to go to the drive-in later, if you wanted. They are showing a Night of the Living Dead marathon tonight. But if you have other plans or… school in the morning, you know."

Something about the idea of going to a drive-in and sitting in my car with Viola for hours made my heart race. I mentally pawned it off as excitement to hang out with someone, when I rarely went out with friends anymore. "Are you serious? I'd love to go. I've always wanted to see those movies, since everyone always goes on about how they are legendary."

"They weren't kidding. It's serious. Awesome. Seriously awesome."

We both nodded in agreement and there was a sudden awkward silence that followed. Neither one of us had anything to say. Or at least, I had plenty to say, but no nerve to say it. Finally I managed to muster enough.

"Can I ask you something?"

"About my brother?" She shot back quickly.

"No…"

"About Duke?"

I shyly retreated. "Is that weird? It's none of my business, I know."

"Actually, it kind of is your business. Irony, right?"

"What do you mean?"

Viola stretched back into her chair as though preparing herself to deliver something huge. "Well, the whole time that I was being… my brother, I was hoping that I could eventually hook up with Duke, as myself. It seemed like a great idea, except the whole time he was also hoping that he could eventually hook himself up, with you."

I could feel my cheeks growing red, but not in a cute way; in a realization of terrible guilt and embarrassment for what was about to come next.

She continued. "Even after he met me as a girl, and kissed me, he still was more than ready to drop me to get with you. I was able to ignore all that, because when he showed up at the ball to be my date, I was just so happy to finally have him. I didn't care about anything else except the thought that maybe he had chosen me. But…" she looked down at the table and started ripping up little pieces of her napkin, "he told me later that night that he had only come because he felt he owed me, and wasn't ready for a relationship with someone who had lied to him. I felt stupid about it for a long time, until eventually I realized that it had nothing to do with what I'd done, and everything to do with him wanting whoever he could be with. You, or me. After it was pretty clear that you and my brother were going to be together and Duke couldn't make his move there, he came crawling back to me and told me he'd 'forgiven' me. I almost fell for it, too. Fortunately, Sebastian told me that just two nights before Duke tried to get with me, he'd had Holly in their dorm room. Duke was trying to get her to fool around with Sebastian, so that you would break up with him."

"Wait… what? Holly, my roommate? Did they do anything? How did I never hear anything about this?"

"Probably because nothing happened. Seb got pissed off and stormed out. He said that when he left, Holly was still in the room, and he couldn't say if she did anything with Duke or not. Either way, he knew that it had all been a stupid plan that Duke came up with to try and see if he could get with you one last time, before he 'settled' on me."

"What the hell… Vi, I'm so sorry. I had no idea." Instinctively, I reached out and placed my hands over hers. She stopped ripping her poor napkin to shreds, and simply held still underneath my touch.

"You really had nothing to do with it, it's all right. I'm just glad that I didn't make any huge mistakes with Duke that I would be regretting now."

"Me too. I mean, I'm glad for you. Who would have known he could be such an ass?"

Viola chuckled tellingly. "Definitely not me, but maybe I have myself to blame for that. I watched him blow me off repeatedly just for the off-chance he might get with you, but instead of turning me off, it just made me chase him even more."

Suddenly I noticed that my thumb was stroking the back of her hand softly. She said nothing. It only lasted for a brief second, as our waitress (who officially suffered from the worst possible timing on earth), arrived with our appetizers and I was forced to retract my hands to allow for room on the table.

"Ah, I knew there was nothing that hot-wings couldn't make better." Viola quipped, grabbing at the plate hungrily.

I sighed slightly. "This time I think I wouldn't have minded if the food could have taken ten more minutes."

"Huh?" Mumbled eloquently through a mouthful of chicken. Same old debutante, Viola Hastings.

"Nothing. I'm starving." I said with a very intentional smile, and attacked some chicken wings of my own.


	4. Chapter 4

The rest of dinner was incredibly smooth compared to the few rocky starts we'd been having prior. Viola had me in a fit of hysterics that caused our neighboring diners to turn and stare, as I nearly fell out of the booth from laughing at her Eunice impersonations. At one point, she was pretending to be both Eunice and Mr. Gold out on a date, and alternated between the two of them fawning all over each other.

We were having so much fun; I didn't want to spoil it by bringing up prom and risk making things awkward all over again. I resolved to talk to her at the end of the night, so that if she did get freaked out and think I was crazy, at least we would be saying goodbye and I could run away.

Needless to say, we didn't leave much of a tip for our pathetic waitress, who continued to exhibit awful service throughout the meal. Just before 9 o'clock, we tossed some change (total of 39 cents exactly), onto the table and headed out to the car.

"You'll have to play guide with me, I have no idea how to get to the drive-in." I called out to her as I unlocked the doors.

"Don't worry, it is way easy. Up the hill, past those funky founders statues, and then hang a right before the housing complex." She tossed her hand up in the general direction of Orlando Heights.

"Nice, it's up there? Must be some view then." I'd been to the Heights neighborhood only once before, and I remembered being awestruck by how much of the cities and landscapes down below could be seen. That had been in the middle of the day, and my mother had driven me up there to drop off some pamphlets to a fellow Avon-seller like herself. I think I was meant to be learning something about business sense, who knows?

At any rate, I was unprepared for the sight before me when Viola and I reached the parking lot of the drive-in. The giant screen was blocking anything directly to the front of us, but on either side of it I could see a silhouette of mountain ranges stretching across the sky. Below them, the lights of residential areas, moving traffic, and shopping centers. Fortunately everything looked so far away that I couldn't make out anything familiar, making it feel even more as if we were isolated far above the world.

"It's beautiful up here." I whispered, afraid to break the serenity.

Viola was busy fidgeting with the handheld speaker that we had been given by the drive-in's attendant. She attached it to her window and looked rather proud of her achievement. "We could go for a walk, if you want. They let you climb halfway up the ladders on the screen. It's really great. The movie won't start for 20 minutes."

"But didn't you want to get popcorn?"

She shot me one of her famous grins; the ones that had made her known as a legendary lady-killer when she was at Illyria. "Don't worry, they bring it to you during the movie. We won't miss anything."

We walked across the parking lot to the screen (which looked even more gigantic close-up), and ascended the ladder halfway up, to a fenced platform. When I turned around and saw it, I couldn't believe my eyes. The beautiful cityscape seemed almost unreal.

"Hellooooooo!" Viola shouted out to the empty air. She turned toward me and flashed me a sheepish look. "I'm kinda afraid of heights. Can't tell, can you?"

"No, I had no idea. You seem very composed. Especially considering that it feels as though we could fall off at any second!"

"Right…" she nervously backed away from the side, "well, it only looks like we are certain to plummet to our violent deaths. In reality, this platform is above some grass and stuff. If it breaks, we likely won't go over the side. At least not, probably. Maybe."

I giggled at her sudden change of attitude. "Well, thanks for bringing me up here. I've never seen something so gorgeous. I could stay up here all night."

"But if we did, you would miss Night of the Living Dead!"

We looked out into the horizon for a few more minutes until we began to see flickering lights behind us, indicating that the projectors were warming up for the film. Somehow breathing the cool night air and feeling so high above everything had exhilarated me. Maybe that's why I found myself letting go of my inhibitions more and more. I felt so relaxed and free, like nothing I did could possibly go wrong for me. When we got back into the car, I suggested that we lounge in the backseat together and recline the front seats so we could see out the windshield. Viola raised her eyebrows slightly at this, but went along with it willingly.

Neither one of us spoke hardly at all for the beginning of the movie. She sat poised on one side of the bench seat, holding onto her popcorn like a newborn. About halfway through, I laid across the seat, putting my feet up and resting my head on her shoulder.

"Are you comfortable? Do you want to move?" I asked, looking up at her.

Was it just my imagination, or did she gulp at that?

"No, I'm all right. Peachy, really. Kinda cold though, are you cold? Maybe they have blankets or something in the little booth."

"Gross, who even knows where they might have been. I think there could be some blankets in my trunk, my brother sometimes borrows my car for his camping trips and never cleans it out." I got out of the car and unexpectedly stepped into a near-freezing night air. The temperature had dropped pretty fast, and I was starting to wish I'd worn something warmer, potential bulkiness be damned.

As I had suspected, my brother had left an endless supply of camping gear in the trunk. Canteens, tent stakes and ropes, even fold-up chairs. I dug around and stuck my hand into something gooey (good thing it was too dark to tell what it might be), before coming across a sleeping bag. "This will have to do." I muttered to myself.

Viola grinned excitedly as I slid back into the seat, holding our ticket to comfortable movie enjoyment in my hands. "Remind me to kiss your brother in gratitude next time I see him."

"Ew, Vi, he's sixteen."

"…on the cheek?"

I tried to undo the zipper so that we could spread out, but it was stuck. "Maybe we should have saved our excitement, the zipper is broken."

"Seriously? I bet we can kind of rip it, brutally. With our giant muscles."

5 minutes and 4 tired arms later, it was agreed that the sleeping bag would not succumb to our puny muscles, after all.

"You could just use it, I won't be too cold." She valiantly offered to me.

"Come on, there's goosebumps all over your arms. Don't give me that tough act, I know it's freezing-balls in here. We'll just have to share it. I'll get in first." I turned my back to her and began to shimmy into the sleeping bag, trying to hide the huge and proud smile on my face. She would have no choice but to be pressed warmly against me inside the tiny, one-person bag, and I would finally get my chance to see for myself something I'd been wondering all these years. Was she just kidding around when she had flirted with me all those times back at Illyria? Not that I wanted to know for any reason other than selfish flattery, but I really was dying to find out. Judging by the complete and total silence that came from the girl behind me, I was already starting to get my answer.

"Ok I'm in," I looked at her over my shoulder and stretched out the side of the bag, "just wiggle in next to me."

"Ok." She mumbled, avoiding my eyes. It was dark in the car but I could see that Viola was blushing again, as she tried to get into the sleeping bag without brushing against me, unsuccessfully.

Our bodies were pressed completely together in the tiny space, and she was left with nowhere to escape from me. I suggested that we slide up a little way, so that we could stretch our legs across the seat. As we did, I covertly rolled onto my side and slipped my leg between hers, finding a place to rest my head in the hollow of her shoulder. My chin just barely touched the top of her breast as I looked over her body and out the windshield.

"Wow, I think we missed a bunch of it. I'm sorry." I whispered.

Viola's heart was beating fast against my cheek, and her breaths were short. "That's ok, they're showing four more movies. Plenty to watch."

"This is a lot warmer." I said as suggestively as I could manage. Just for curiosity's sake, I reached out my arm and wrapped it around her waist loosely. I was so bold, I surprised even myself.

"The movie is almost over, then it's Dawn of the Dead next."

Frustrated at her total lack of reaction, I pressed further. I unwrapped my arm from around her and reached out of the sleeping bag, down the side of the seat to the floor. This in turn caused me to lean forward so that our faces were nearly touching, and I could feel her rapid breath against my lips. I picked up the popcorn, and slowly laid back into position with my head on her shoulder. "Do you want some?" I whispered.

It was quiet for a minute. Surely this time I had broken her resolve. If Viola Hastings really did have an ounce of bisexuality buried deep inside her, it would be forced to surface now, with my body draped over her and me propositioning her so blatantly.

"Um. Yeah. Ok. Sure. Popcorn." She grabbed a handful spastically and managed to throw a fair bit around the car in the process of getting it to her mouth. "Oh shit, I'm sorry, I just totally messed up your car. I'll pick it up when they set up the next movie."

"It's all right, I don't care about the popcorn." It was true, I didn't. In fact, the popcorn could have fucked itself for all I cared. Defeated and resigned, I gave up on my attempts to discover Viola's secret attraction to me before I made a total ass of myself, and settled begrudgingly on watching the screen. At least I was warm and comfortable, and the movies didn't seem half-bad.


	5. Chapter 5

…I don't think you ready for this jelly, I don't think you ready for this jelly, I don't think you ready for this… 'cause my body too bootylicious for ya babe…

_My cell phone was ringing, I could hear it somewhere. Maybe it was behind that giant suitcase, and the banana salesman._

_"Excuse me sir, my phone is ringing."_

_He handed me one of his bananas. I eyed it skeptically, it was a different color than my cell phone. My cell phone was red. This banana was yellow._

" _Peel it." He said._

_I peeled the banana. Inside, the banana was red. Like my cell phone._

" _Hello?" I said into the banana._

… _I don't think you ready for this jelly, I don't think you ready for this jelly, I don't think you ready for this… 'cause my body too bootylicious for ya babe…_

" _It's still ringing. Still ringing."_

"Olivia?"

" _This banana doesn't work! Give me an apple!"_

"Liv? Olivia, someone is calling you."

The next thing I saw was Viola's face looking down at me. I had no idea what she was doing there, and it seemed like the banana salesman should be nearby. Her green eyes were simply gazing into mine, her wavy and slightly tangled locks framing her face angelically in dawn's light.

Oh shit, dawn's light.

I sat up quickly, smashing my head into the roof of my car.

Oh shit, roof of my car!

"What time is it? We fell asleep? What happened?" I asked, frantically looking around the sleeping bag for my cell phone or something that would give me clues to the answers of these desperate questions.

"It's ok, don't freak out. You fell asleep during the second movie. I'm sorry, I didn't wake you up."

I managed to uncover the mystery location of my cell phone when I leaned forward and felt it digging into my hip. The next step of trying to remove it from my jeans pocket successfully was another task entirely.

"I don't think it's very late, the fourth movie isn't even over yet," Viola explained quietly, her voice sounding raspier than usual, "I was going to wake you at the end."

I laid backwards, trying to make my waist flat so that I might be able to get into my pocket. Inadvertently this made my body flush with Viola's, and as I wiggled around on top of her, she groaned uncomfortably.

"I'm sorry…" I panted out, "I cant… reach my… phone… just… a second… ugh!" I violently tugged it loose, slamming my elbow into the back of the passenger's chair in the process. The small screen on my cell told me that I had 2 missed calls from Holly, and that it was 5:07am. I breathed a sigh of relief; at least it was still early enough to get back, have a shower, and go to school. "Oh, good. It's not that late. It's ok." I breathlessly relayed.

She shifted a little beneath me, getting into a less painful position. "Are you always this spastic in the morning?" She playfully asked.

I leaned my head back slightly, resting against her collarbone, and feeling grateful that if I did have some form of disgusting morning breath, at least I was looking away from her. "Only if I think I'm late for something, or I wake up confused and in a strange place; which would sum up the last 60 seconds perfectly."

"You can go back to sleep for the rest of the movie if you want to, I'll wake you up at the end."

I glanced out the windshield. Some zombies were terrorizing the neighborhood, not unlike the other two films I'd briefly witnessed, only this time the film quality looked slightly better. "Are you pretty into it?"

"Yeah." She sighed, sounding somewhat distant. Then she seemed to realize what I had asked and quickly shook her head. "Wait, no. I mean, the movie is ok. I wasn't really paying attention. Do you want to go or something? I've seen this a hundred times, I don't need to watch it again."

The softness in her reaction made me reconsider my hurried state. "We don't have to rush, I guess. I usually go running with Holly around this time, which is probably why she kept calling, but I wouldn't make it now anyway."

"I'm really sorry that I didn't wake you up, I didn't know you had to go running and I would have-"

"No, thank you for letting me get some sleep. I appreciate that. Besides, I don't really want to see Holly now that you told me about her and Duke, and that whole… fiasco."

I felt Viola's chin brush against my temple as she nodded slowly in agreement. Neither one of us said anything, for good reason, it seemed that mentioning Duke was a pretty abrupt killer to any conversation. After a few seconds, she shifted just slightly to look out at the screen through the window. I noticed just then that the volume had been lowered considerably on our portable speaker box so that the dialogue was barely audible. She must have done that after I fell asleep, and kept watching all night without moving or disturbing me. I wondered if that had been very uncomfortable? It must have been, with me being deadweight just slumped over her like that. I suddenly felt a little bit ashamed of myself for my silly and ridiculous ploy intended to wage if she had been only acting while wearing a tie. I remembered more details of the night before and groaned out loud without realizing it; she had been honest and fun and acted like a real friend to me, and I'd tried to seduce her as some kind of weird joke.

"Are you ok?" Viola asked with concern.

"Yeah, I guess. I'm just fully awake now."

She nodded in agreement, but as I turned my head back to look at her, I could see that her eyes were laced with confusion.

"I'm sorry if I was really retarded last night." I blurted out. "I remember now that I was… just, being strange."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, I hope that I didn't weird you out."

Viola made a quiet snorting sound I could only try to describe as a 'guffaw'. "I don't know what you're talking about, at all. Last night I had the greatest time that I've had in… ages. I don't even have that much fun playing soccer anymore. Maybe I used to, when I first started getting really good, and I was really motivated to win all of the time, like it was a surprise to me whether or not I did it. But these days, it's more about plays that I've done 200 times, and trying to find sponsors, who really don't care about girl players anyway. Then there are these really lame public appearances, where no one shows up except for these really creepy pervy guys, and they are usually like, 'hey, I saw your boobs bouncing on the field last week' and I am usually like, 'I want to kick you in the nuts but you're the only person who wants my autograph today, so okay here you go'. It's not fun anymore. And no matter what the venue is, it always smells like my grandma Ilene's refrigerator. Which isn't pretty."

I couldn't hold back my smile as I watched her carry on.

"Uh, anyway," she stammered, "soooooo, I had a good time. I really do wish that we hung out more. I hope that we can from now on; to make up for lost time, or something."

"I hope that we can, for sure."

"Good. We are both mentally stable parties in mutual agreement, so I do believe that constitutes as a legally binding contract."

"Law class lectures are seeping into your everyday life, huh?"

Viola mocked a look of terror. "Something like that."

I tried to smile in my most non-sexual predatory way. "Thank you, for being cool. It probably does come naturally to you, but it's been really nice to hang out with someone who doesn't treat me like some type of blonde idiot who's incapable of achieving anything alone." I hadn't meant to make that sound like such a dig on her brother, but clearly we both caught the hidden meaning without needing to elaborate further.

She stretched her back a little, and rolled her shoulders around, actions which slightly bounced me in her lap. "Yeah, I'm pretty cool." She whispered jokingly. I pretended to roll my eyes in response.

We stayed there, cuddled in our sleeping bag, until what I deemed the last possible moment. Every time I thought it might be a good idea to get up and get back on the road, I decided to myself that I would do one less thing in exchange for staying longer. First I determined that I would trade 20 minutes for not doing my make-up before school. Then I decided that I would rather stay and watch the end of the movie, than wash and blow-dry my hair. Pretty soon I was out of unnecessary grooming procedures to bargain with, and we definitely had to get going, or I was going to end up in school wearing the same outfit I had on the day before.

Viola was sweet enough to roll up the sleeping bag and put it back in the trunk, even though (as I pointed out), my dumb brother should have to clean up his own mess of camping gear. I surveyed the rest of the parking lot to discover that only two other cars had lasted the whole marathon, and probably fallen asleep as we had. Well, as I had, anyway.

As we drove back to her house, I thought for a second that this was probably my last chance to talk to her about prom, before I dropped her off.

It was nearly as if she'd read my mind when she spoke. "Are you still coming to the junior league thing tonight? If you are, I'll see you then and, you know, we can figure out something about tomorrow and getting you ready for the big day."

"I'll make an appearance. What about you though, won't you be exhausted? You didn't get any sleep all night."

"Heh… nah. I have the rest of the day to pass out in my room. I've mastered this really valuable survival skill, where I'm able to respond to my mother's voice in my sleep without ever waking up. It's allowed me to sleep-in every single weekend for the past 5 years. I even find myself doing it with my roommate at school now. She will say to me 'why didn't you get me a burrito when you were at the store?' Then I say 'what?! You wanted a burrito?! You crazy, you never told me!' and she goes 'hell yeah I did, this morning at 6:15'. So I guess that's something that will come in handy throughout my life."

"Yeah you should teach classes on that tonight, instead of soccer drills. The sixth graders would probably benefit most from the knowledge of how to ignore their over-powering mothers."

This lame joke forced Viola into a fit of giggles, complete with a few little snorts.

I tried not to laugh, feeling my comment hadn't been worthy of it, but I couldn't resist joining in when hearing her amusement. "It wasn't that funny!" I heckled, elbowing her in the arm.

"I know, it just was something about how you said it!"

For no reason at all, we laughed the whole way back to her house. When I walked her in to say goodbye, there were still some residual chuckles taking place. Daphne had this look on her face when she came to see what we were doing, the kind that just seemed to scream 'my goodness, have you two been out all night smoking the marijuana?!'

I pulled Viola into a quick hug and told her again what a perfect night I'd had.

"We'll see you tonight." She said with a giant grin.

"Nice seeing you, Mrs. Hastings. Get some sleep, Vi." I gave my best debutante/beauty queen wave and made my exit. As I closed the front door behind me, I let out another laugh that couldn't be held in. "What a hilarious family." I whispered to myself, still unable to get past that look that Daphne had given us.

I checked the time on my cell phone and hauled ass back to my car. I only had an hour to get to school and shower to get to class on time.

It wasn't until I got back to my room that I realized; I still had to talk to Viola about tomorrow. I'd done such a successful job of putting it off that now I was royally screwed into doing it at the Big Mentor function, which had great potential for turning into a festival of awkward. I needed to come up with some sort of back-up plan, just in case I couldn't manage to work up the nerve with her. Or, even worse, if she simply turned me down flat.

I pushed the thought out of my head as best I could, and jumped into the shower. No use freaking out now… that time would come soon enough.


	6. Chapter 6

I found it hard to sit still in many of my morning classes. Multiple times I found myself lost in a daydream about the night before. I tried my hardest not to recount any of the moments where I had so shamelessly thrown myself at Viola, but I would be reading my textbook and suddenly find that I had been thinking about what happened in the car for nearly 10 minutes. She had seemed very genuine when she said she didn't find me weird, and when I'd looked in her eyes I knew that she meant it. Still, something was nagging me about those moments we shared, tucked away in that sleeping bag. Something seemed like it had been out-of-place and dishonest, and it kept nagging at me through my first four subjects until lunch time, when I returned to my room and started cooking a frozen burrito.

While I waited for the microwave, I checked my email. There were two from my mother, two newsletters, a notice about prom tickets, and one from Viola. I eagerly ignored all others and opened hers right away.

_Olivia,_

_I should probably be sleeping right now, you know? I'm wide awake. I was going to call you but I thought you probably would be in class. So email it is._

_Hope you are looking forward to tonight. Well, that's weird to say. But I've been dreading coming home for this thing all week, and now I'm excited about it. Remember to bring some shorts and a jersey! Don't worry about shin guards, those sixth graders can't kick very high. If you want to do something after, my mom said I could borrow her car. She gave me the funniest look and said "try to be home before midnight this time" haha!_

_I'll see you soon_

_Vi_

I smiled as I read it over again the second time. My microwave chimed to let me know that lunch was ready, but I postponed my burrito feast to hurriedly type a reply.

_Hey Vi_

_Thanks for writing, I'm glad that you did. As you suspected, I was in class. It's lunch right now. I hope you get some sleep today! Can't have you passing out and laying around on top of the field tonight. Your mom will definitely start thinking that I've given you a cocktail of narcotics and street drugs._

_Hmm, I don't have any sports shorts, only some denim ones, and beach shorts. Also I don't have a jersey, either. Is that a necessary item? Because a tshirt seems so similar in every way, except for the numbers. If my beach shorts and tshirt are acceptable apparel, that is what I will bring!_

_I'll see you tonight_

_Love, Olivia_

I hit 'send' and checked the clock; I only had about 10 more minutes before my next class started. I hated to eat in a rush, it always left me feeling bloated and full for hours. However this time I really couldn't avoid it. I downed that burrito like it was something more delicious and inevitably less-frozen in the middle. While I ate, I pulled my skirt and Illryia polo out of my closet to get ready for my upcoming subject – P.E. It had never made sense why the school bothered with the façade of having a P.E. course, when in actuality, it was simply tennis every day. Probably something to do with requirements for graduation.

When the bell rang, I was still running across the oval to get to the tennis courts, carrying my racquet and a can of balls. Upon my late arrival, Mr. Gosford threatened to write me a detention slip the "next time". Usually I would have trembled in my shoes over such a possibility, and apologized more times than necessary to avoid my most dreaded fate of getting into 'trouble' at school. However, this day was different for some reason, and I managed to see the frivolity in it all, and shrugged coolly before doing a few stretches. When it finally came time to play a match, I was like a cat on that court, bouncing from side-to-side and nailing ace serves that I can normally only do on Wii Sports. Justine Dagmyer (my opponent), had to stop halfway through one game to find a sweatband she could borrow, so sweat would stop dripping in her eyes from the severe work-out I was handing her.

It was serious tennis, and I was not letting up.

Finally Justine had enough and forfeited the final game of the match. I felt a swelling pride of achievement, along with some relief for having found a clever way to make the period pass by so quickly. We shook hands courteously and headed in to the locker rooms for an early shower. Not many girls were there, but I saw Holly out of the corner of my eye as I started to undress.

"Hey, where the fuck were you this morning?" She shouted, coming closer. "You're pissed off so you don't go running? Since when?"

"Relax Holly. I didn't get home until 7. I wasn't blowing you off."

Her jaw hung open, an action that didn't help her to look very intelligent. "You spent the night with Viola Hastings? The TRANNY?! Oh what the fuck, Olivia? That is some desperate shit, you have just got to be kidding me."

I clenched my jaw and could feel my ears starting to burn with fury, but I simply grabbed my soap and anti-perspirant out of my locker and slammed it shut.

Another brain-dead peon on the same mental level as Holly had overheard our conversation and decided to join in with her idiocy. "You slept with Viola? How was it? What did she do? Was she dressed as her brother? Wait… whoa, aren't you DATING her brother?"

"They broke up!" Holly, the newscaster, decided to chime in with her special report.

I started to walk toward the showers, but the two douchebags followed me.

"So is that why you did it with his sister, some kind of weird revenge? Or was it like a crazy love-triangle where you had to do it with her, dressed up with him? Wait… whoa. Did you know it was her? Or did she trick you? That is so messed up!"

Holly agreed that she also found it to be "messed up".

While the thought occurred to me that I may find pleasure in kicking them both in their respective stomachs, I also realized that if I continued to ignore them, they could amuse themselves for hours and assume that I was speaking to them. This was decidedly most appealing, since it meant I could go on with my shower and pretend they didn't exist.

"I once saw this show on Discovery Channel about people who are trannies, and they really think they are not trannies, but then they will get people pregnant and never tell them!"

"Whoa… wait. I was watching the L word…"

It amused me beyond belief that this girl had just admitted to such a thing.

"…and this girl became a guy and she liked girls, and had sex with them, but then some guy hit on her, and she was a guy, so she didn't like it. Then the guy was like 'it's not what you like, it's if you're gay' or something. So like, people who are gay, if they become trannies, they are gay again."

My rage subsided easily when I could plainly see how the two most ludicrous girls should not give me any cause for alarm. They continued to stand outside the shower stalls for the duration of my shower, then chased me back to my locker where I proceeded to get dressed. The entire time they compared notes on all the lesbian films or tv shows they had ever seen, followed by their theory of how that applied to the "sex" that Viola and I had all night long.

Finally I was finished and it was time to move on. I turned to face them both and quietly said: "You both realize that you just spent 10 minutes watching other girls shower and talked about the lesbian sex you watch frequently in your spare time? Frankly, I'm uncomfortable being around you both, if you can't stop thinking about naked girls long enough to get through one P.E. class."

The looks on their bigoted faces were so priceless, I was almost sad to leave them that way when I walked out of the locker room.

As soon as the final bell rang, I bolted from my chair and made a hasty exit to my room. I grabbed my prom dress, all of my make-up, a spare change of clothes, and my toothbrush, throwing them into a duffel bag. Before adding my laptop to the mix, I checked my email once more to find a response from Viola.

_Liv,_

_Come over early tonight, I'll set you up with clothes. Sorry this is short… I'm passing out! Be asleep soon for sure._

_Vi_

I snapped the computer shut and added it to the assortment in my bag. Before Holly (or anyone else), had even returned to the dorms, I was out the main double doors and nearly to the parking lot.

Briefly I debated whether I ought to go home and get myself ready, or drive straight to Viola's. Of course, I chose the latter. Why get dressed in something just to go to her house in order to get dressed into something else? That was my logic.

There were a few cars on the sidewalk when I pulled up, and I was forced to park further down the street. I recognized one of them as Mrs. Bigbee's red mustang convertible, which was rumored within Junior League to be part of her alimony payments that came in her divorce settlement. The irony of the story was that her husband had bought that car in his midlife crisis in order to snag young blondes – the very vice which secured the divorce and ultimately his loss of the car.

When I got to the door I could hear several women's voices in some type of giggle-inducing discussion. Mrs. Hastings came out to greet me and quickly directed me toward the stairs so that I may avoid her apparent afternoon tea. I obliged her, because why on earth would I want to hang around? Sometimes mothers had the weirdest ideas.

Viola's door was three-quarters closed. I gently pushed it open, seeing that the shades were drawn to take nearly all light from the room. It took me a minute to adjust to the darkness, but I could see what appeared to be the outlines of a desk and a large bed. On the bed, of course, was Viola: sound asleep.

Closing the door behind me as softly as I could, I took care to memorize the location of the bed so I could make my way over to it. It was even darker now without the light from the hallway, so I had to stumble around and feel for the side. When I was touching something, and facing the general direction of where I believed Viola to be, I whispered quietly.

"Viola? Are you awake?"

There was some sort of mumbling response. I tried to move closer to it and knelt down on the side of the bed.

"Viola? It's Olivia. We have to get ready for Big Mentor, remember?"

A few more mumbles and then something that sounded remotely like "okay".

"Okay, good? So we'll get dressed in some soccer jerseys and do some kicking. What do you say?"

No response this time. I felt around on the blankets until I found some bumps that seemed to be a shoulder and arm. I gently rubbed my hand in a circle over the comforter in this general region.

"Do you want to go back to sleep?" I asked quietly, to maybe see if she was aware that she was asleep at all.

"No… I'll get up…" she mumbled. Her lack of movement made it clear that she was doing the opposite.

I waited for a few moments longer, gently stroking her arm through the blankets. My vision was beginning to adjust and I could see a bit of her face, enough to tell that she was sleeping serenely. This only lasted a minute longer, as she slowly began to shift out of her dreams and open her eyes slightly.

Viola groaned a little, and then looked up at me. "Hey… Olivia, are we late for the thing?"

I smiled and shook my head. "No, I just came over right after school. We should still have about half an hour to get ready."

"Oh… good." She started to stretch a little bit, and then looked down at my hand on the blankets. "So, how long have you been groping my boob like that?"

"Uh…" I jerked my hand away and looked at where it had been, which was clearly too far away from her head to possibly be her shoulder. "I thought it was… your arm or something." I was grateful that the darkness of the room hid the flush of red that I could feel building in my cheeks.

She laughed wholeheartedly. "I've heard that line from guys before, but didn't expect you to be the type! Next time I fall asleep, I'll tell my mom to guard the door. Who knows what I might wake up to?"

I punched her lightly in the arm… her real one this time. "Stop your dirty dreams and help me get ready. Do you think there will be food there?"

"Probably not. We can eat something here, or stop on the way and get burgers. Whatever you wanna' do."

I got off the bed and Viola followed me, flicking on the light.

"Did you get much sleep?" I casually asked as she headed to her closet and began to pull out random soccer-type items.

"Yeah a few good hours in there somewhere. I kept dreaming that I was at the mentorship thing and it lasted for three days so I didn't get back on the plane to school in time. I think that made me wake up a few times."

She continued to talk to me about the events of her day as I browsed the framed photographs she had displayed on her desk. There were several of her with either of her parents, separately, a few of her and Sebastian, Paul, Kia, and Yvonne. There was a soccer team shot that looked pretty old, probably 8th grade or so. Then I found one that surprised me; a picture of Sebastian and myself at a party. I vaguely remembered taking it, when we were very first dating and hadn't become an official "couple" quite yet. It was about 3 weeks after the Cornwall vs. Illyria soccer game where I (and the rest of town) had discovered the truth about the twins. It wasn't in a frame like the others, just sitting there on top of a stack of loose photos.

"…then of course, I emailed you. You probably knew that because of the time. I thought 'maybe I should eat some lunch?' But then I remembered this Vietnam veteran guy once told me that eating and sleeping were interchangeable, so I should probably sleep instead. That's when I went to sleep. Ok, which shorts do you want?" She held up a pair of Illyria reds and some black Adidas soccer shorts.

I pointed to the Adidas and she tossed them to me quickly. "Do you mind if I look at your pictures?"

"Sure, go for it. I don't even know what's in this room anymore since I moved so much stuff to school. Probably really old ones."

Viola went back to rummaging through her closet and grumbling about how her mom had moved her favorite jersey somewhere in her absence, while I thumbed through the stack of photos with surprise. Several more were from the same night as the first, with shots of Sebastian and me making strange faces for the camera. There were a few that he had taken of me (standing by my car, holding up a loaf of bread in a grocery store, talking on my cell phone). I wondered if maybe their mother had found the pictures and put them in Viola's room by mistake. Or maybe Sebastian didn't like them because his hair didn't look right and so he'd asked his sister to get rid of them.

"Aha!" Viola shouted, emerging from the closet. "I knew it could not have gone far. Here's your jersey, and here's mine!" She held it up dramatically for me. I responded with a look of awe, because even I am not quite so out-of-it to not know that a jersey that says Beckham on it is probably valuable.

I took my "soccer clothes" and went to change in the bathroom. While there, I checked my hair and make-up for good measure, and performed a few touch-ups where needed. The uniform she gave me was a bit baggy and boyish compared to my usual athletic gear, which was ashamedly a collection of skirts, polos, and even country club-issued sweaters. I would have preferred to wear something that made me look slightly more feminine and not make it appear as though I were impersonating one of _my_ brothers.

I expected that Viola would laugh at me when I returned to her bedroom, but she surprised me by greeting me with a smile that was not at all meant in mocking.

"You look ready to play some ball." She remarked.

"I think I might feel ready. Except for the part of being ready where I actually know how to play."

She smirked. "Don't worry, I'll help ya' out. I got a lifetime of knowledge."

I wiped the cocky and lopsided grin off her face by quickly tossing a well-aimed pillow that hit her in the chest. She caught it with both hands, but not before it made impact.

"Hey, no hands," I taunted, "that's a foul, of some kind."

"Oh is that right? I didn't realize you had this game all wrapped up under your hat there, Miss Lennox. Well in that case, I might just hang out here at home tonight, catch up on some episodes of CSI, and let yooooou take over for me." She stalked towards me and (predictably, but cute), batted my arms with the pillow. For good measure she laughed hysterically, bounded out of her bedroom, and literally hopped down the stairs. I could hear the shocked yet somehow still repressed squeals of the ladies in the dining room as she likely made a ridiculous face at them.

Something in me wondered where all her energy and childishness came from, but I couldn't complain. It made being around her so much more fun than being around anyone else.


	7. Chapter 7

Viola made me a ham and cheese sandwich for dinner, which I easily  
devoured. After that brief event, we both got into my car and headed  
to the Stratford Junior League Center. Daphne and most of the women  
she'd been having afternoon tea with were not far behind us.

It was clear as we walked into the Center's main hall that the night was going to hold a lot of work ahead of us. About 150 various preteen girls were running amok – destroying streamer decorations, pushing each other over, and screaming at the tops of their lungs. Viola stood there next to me, a giant grin on her face as she watched their escapades.

"You know, if they keep up this case of the crazies, we can probably just go home and let their very-appalled mothers deal with them," she speculated wishfully.

"I think that might be our culprit over there." I pointed to the far corner by the window, where crystal bowls that usually served "refined" beverage refreshments were stocked with orange soda. There was a horde of girls crowding the table and doing their best impression of a drinking contest.

"Ah, good. If we can just manage to keep the steady flow of tangy goodness at a maximum, these hellspawn will torment and destroy everything in their paths."

I watched with my jaw hanging open as one of the girls tried to do a cartwheel and went directly into a potted plant, knocking it sideways, spilling soil everywhere. The end result did nothing except cause most of the bouncing brats to go around the mess. I was transfixed on their careless energy when one blonde in glasses and a pullover sweater came running up to us.

"Teacher! Teacher!" She shouted to neither me nor Viola in particular. "That girl over there pinched me, really hard!"

"Are you bleeding?" Viola quipped.

"No but... it really hurt! She needs to go to time out!"

We "teachers" looked at each other knowingly, sharing a look of skepticism.

"Well, I have a good idea. Why don't we go in the bathroom and put cold water on your pinch... wound." I suggested sarcastically, but too subtle for the younger girl to recognize.

"Yeah," Viola agreed, "that way, when all the mommies show up, we will be busy helping. In the bathroom. Let's go quickly!"

Her plan had been foolproof. Not five minutes later, we heard the telltale sounds of hushed whispering and high heels walking down the corridors outside the bathroom, followed by gasps of surprise. 10 seconds later, the killer-mom instincts seem to win out, and there were many threats regarding the safety and livelihood of such cherished items as a High School Musical backpack, and a Hannah Montana poster. These terrible promises instantly quieted the room of girls, and we listened to hear Janice Dobson (a particularly anal mother) using her 'inside voice' to provide very demeaning instructions for cleaning up the messes in the hall.

"You better go join the others, Cindy." I said to our pinched partner-in-crime, who hung her head and reluctantly hopped off the counter. We'd been running ice cold water over a non-existent spot on her left arm for long enough already.

As she got to the door, she turned and chimed out happily over her shoulder, "I hope you are my teachers when mental time comes!"

"Hmm. Sweet girl." Viola made a sarcastic face that looked like she was gagging.

"Not that it made much sense anyway, but I think she meant to say 'when mentor time comes'."

"Oh yeah, I get that now."

We waited for a few more minutes just for good measure, to avoid the rage of the mothers as much as possible. When we did emerge (cleverly looking as though we had just arrived) we were quickly sent outside to a grass area to "set up the soccery things".

Viola was quick to point out the obvious – the tiny lawn wouldn't be enough space at all to do much more than bounce balls on our knees.

"Unless we kick toward the parking lot." I remarked, purposefully flashing my naughtiest smile.

She appeared to contemplate this for a brief moment, and then handed me a couple of orange cones with a grin to match mine. "Sixth graders don't know how to kick very high, right? Worst case scenario, we hit a couple of tires."

As if on cue, three dozen screaming girls came rushing out of the Center's double doors. They immediately found a place on the lawn and began splitting into small groups with the sole purpose of talking louder than surrounding groups.

"So uh... what are we doing, anyway?" I asked an overwhelmed-looking Viola, nudging her arm.

"Maybe we should make them run around the center until they are too tired to speak."

"I'll let you deliver that fun news to them, coach."

She repeated herself as loudly as she could over the crowd of girls (minus the not-speaking part). It got their attention, but mostly stopped them from squealing and made them stare at her as though she were crazy. More quietly, she continued; "Soccer is all about running. That is how you control the game, by being faster on the field than your opponent. So hurry up and do... five laps."

There was a unanimous groan. A few girls started calling out excuses for their inability to run, the most common citation being inappropriate footwear.

"If you have athsma or don't want to run, you can stay here and we will teach you how to hit the ball with your head and face. Also how to slide in the grass." I managed to come up with that on the spot, and the girls fell for it. Deciding that running was slightly more-ladylike than hitting balls in the face and getting grass stains, they trudged across the parking lot toward the side of the center.

Viola watched them running away with a look of pure amusement. "That was pretty easy. Good call, by the way, except that practicing slides is baseball, not soccer."

"Hey, if I don't know, they don't know."

She laughed at this, and grabbed two balls out of her bag, tossing one to me. I was afraid she was going to require me to do something sporty with it, thus embarrassing myself, but felt relieved when she used hers to sit on. That was something that I, too, was able to do.

We sat side-by-side and looked across the grass, toward a J. Crew department store and a Starbucks. It seemed fitting that the Center was positioned so closely to the places where Junior League mothers would want to spend their time. Or was that just clever business planning?

"So, prom is tomorrow?" Viola said casually.

I looked over at her to try and read her face, but she was staring down at something in the grass very intently. "Yeah," I tentatively started, "it's at 9, but I'll probably do my best to show up late. That's the cool way to do things, I hear."

"Are you on the court or anything?"

My surprise at such a notion was probably obvious. "No!" I said a little more indignantly than probably necessary. "That's a pretty crazy idea."

"Is it? I don't think so. You were the hottest girl in school when I was there."

Despite myself I became slightly embarrassed at this. Judging by her face, she was feeling similarly.

"Well," Viola stammered, "that is what the boys always told me. The real boys. Especially Duke, he was always telling me how you were the hottest girl in school. When I was a boy, too."

I stopped her before she could babble any more; although I enjoyed it, I knew that it made her uncomfortable. "Well, thank you. I'm really flattered that you thought that." I waited one second to see if she would correct me, but she didn't. "I am not very popular at Illyria since you left, especially this last year. Not that I really dreamed of being prom queen or anything, but having friends is sometimes nice, or so I hear."

Viola didn't respond immediately as we both looked toward the Center to see the girls making their first lap. They appeared to still be talking and jumping excessively as they ran, but at least were showing signs of barely decreased energy levels.

"I didn't do very well at Cornwall my senior year, either." She said wistfully, rolling on her ball-seat to turn back toward me. "I guess that was to be expected. I showed up, all 'hey dudes, I'm ready to be a girl and start chilling with you all again', and the girls were wigged out by me, and the boys thought I had gone butch. I still had my little posses, but otherwise it was pretty much social death. After about four weeks of that, I was going crazy trying to get people to start treating me like a human being and not a freak in a skirt, so Paul and I made out in front of the school during assembly."

"What? Did I hear you correctly?" The image came into my head and I burst out laughing. "You, and Paul? Was that just the most awkward thing ever?"

A shy smile crossed her face. "We'd done it before. In ninth grade, Paul started realizing how he felt about guys and he got really scared. So he asked me to go out with him. It only lasted for like a month, and I knew exactly what his reasons were, but I tried really hard to help him anyway. We made out aaaaaaaaaall the time. Finally he was just like 'you're hot, Viola, but I've been imagining a dude this whole time'."

I laughed again at that. "What 'dude' was it?"

"I was afraid to ask, but I'm guessing Patrick Swayze. I went over to his house one time and walked in his room without knocking. He had his hand down his pants and looked like he was about to get down to 'Ghost'."

"Gross! Are you sure he wasn't watching it for Whoopi Goldberg? She is hot in a mantastic kind of way."

Viola giggled, adorably. "No, he always finds her in magazines and draws eyebrows on her. Besides, he constantly says the lines from 'Dirty Dancing' and I know he's watched it more times than I've probably peed in my life."

We both laughed together this time, and then I caught her eyes for a brief second and smiled. She smiled back at me, and didn't look away or make a goofy face: actions I had come to expect from her in quieter moments.

Though I was enjoying our beautiful time of relaxing and stress-free conversation, I inwardly resolved that this was the perfect time to say to her what I'd been needing to, even though it likely meant the rest of our Big Mentor function would be confusing or weird. Half of me was screaming out 'no, it's a terrible idea' but the other half insisted that if I didn't do it now, my chance would be gone and I'd be left with regrets.

"It didn't work, anyway." She said, dragging me out of my thoughts.

"What?"

"Making out with Paul, it didn't make anyone see me as straight. A few people thought it was a funny joke so they started talking to me, but no one really wanted to hang out or anything."

I rolled my eyes. "People are so intolerant, you know? Who cares if you dressed up like a boy, or a giraffe, or a... rabbi! What does it matter to them?"

She nodded enthusiastically. "I'm glad you're not like that. I know it's probably weirdest for you out of everyone because you and I had kind of a... thing. I really should have thought shit through better before I did what I did, though. I didn't know it was going to be like when grandma sat on the fan, you know?"

As much as I wanted to elaborate about that proverbial "thing", the more immediate question was: What the hell happened to her grandma? "Uhm, what happened to your grandma?"

"Oh you didn't hear?" A very mischievous grin spread across her face. "Dis-assed-her."

She wiggled her eyebrows at me, and I laughed so hard that I snorted. Twice. I even nearly rolled off my soccer ball and into the grass. Viola giggled with a proud look of amusement.

I was still chuckling when we caught sight of the sixth graders, making their second lap. One of them yelled across the parking lot: "How much longer do we have to run?!"

Viola checked her watch, as if that were a factor, and then shouted back: "One more time!"

They groaned in misery and exaggeratedly dragged their feet across the pavement. We watched until they had disappeared around to the side of the building.

"Vi, I want to talk to you about tomorrow, if that's ok." I had just blurted it out, surprising myself. There would be no turning back now.

"Yeah, do you still want to meet up to do your hair or something? I checked with my mom to see what's going on tomorrow and she's got me running around doing this boring stuff with her in the morning, but we should be done by like, noon, and then after that I'm not busy at all. You know, just, chillaxin'. Like a villaxin'. Made of waxin'."

I wondered why she suddenly looked so nervous and aloof. Maybe she knew what I was going to ask and was afraid of how she would have to shoot me down? Or maybe she was simply reading my nervousness and it was making her react badly. I was increasingly shaky.

"Or," she continued, likely unnerved by my inability to speak quickly, "if you don't want me to help you, that makes a lot of sense. I mean, if you've got it all arranged, then I would just be in the way. I didn't ever go to my senior prom at Cornwall, so I'm not exactly a promular professional or anything. In fact, I'm extremely lacking in promulation experience. Kia and Yvonne and I just stayed at home that night and ate chocolate-covered donut holes and watched 'The OC'."

"No, I'm sorry, it's not that at all. I do want you to help me get ready. I really do. I'm sorry if I was making it sound like I might not want you to be there. I think we would have a..." I struggled with the words, since 'romantic' was the only one that came to mind, "perfect time just hanging out and doing the get-ready thing. Together."

"Oh, ok. Well cool, then."

I nodded.

Viola nodded.

We looked at each other, then looked away.

I was more than aware of the ridiculousness of the situation, comparable to awkward moments of dating life that I had not experienced since middle school, yet I still couldn't manage to simply be straight-forward and make the whole thing less-complicated.

"So... what _was_ it that you wanted to talk to me about, then?"

I took a deep breath and told myself that it was a good friendship while it lasted, but if I couldn't let this go, it just might be about to come to a brutal end. I had to take the chance anyway. I could hear the chattering voices of the sixth graders nearing closer to the parking lot, and knew it was now or never. Viola stared at me kindly and patiently, anticipation in her eyes.

"I was wondering if you wanted to do more than just help me get ready for prom."

She nodded thoughtfully. "What do you mean?"

"I was wondering if..." oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, "if you wanted to go to prom, with me."

Viola squinted her eyes slightly in confusion. "Like, with a group of your friends or something?"

"No. As..." oh fuck, fuck, fuck, "my date."

I could practically hear my heart pounding like a freakish trance party in my chest. She formed an "oh" shape with her mouth and fixated her gaze on something nowhere near my eyes, saying nothing. It felt like we were sitting there for half an hour, just both waiting, as if her answer to my proposal was going to drop out of the sky and surprise us both. Her face was completely unreadable, which was completely new to me; I'd never seen her look so absolutely expressionless before. Usually I had some clue or indication what she might be feeling, but this was almost as if Viola had turned her emotions off for the duration of the time that we sat there in silence.

It was highly uncomfortable. I felt the sweat from my hands making damp spots on the outside of the shorts I was wearing and I hoped they would somehow dry off and not leave a weird smell.

Finally, she moved her head a little. She looked ready to speak, then drew in a breath and went back to her distant gazing. The suspense was killing me. Why couldn't she just give me the answer quickly and easily? Like ripping off a band-aid, or puking. I nearly said to her: 'don't worry, it's cool. You don't have to go with me.' But then I realized that as much as that might ease the tension, I needed to hear her answer come from her own lips, and in her own words.

Again, she looked ready to speak. This time, she did. "Well, Olivia, I'm glad that you asked me."

This definitely sounded like a rejection. It had rejection written all over it in huge red letters. This was the kind of rejection that starts out "thank you for submitting your application to Harvard Law", or "we are writing to you to inform you that we have received your resume for our open position as an espionage operative". It never ended well, because those were just shots in the dark. Dreams that were completely unattainable. It was like walking into NASA and asking them to hand you a rocket so you could get to work at building your summer cabin on the moon. Sure, they would all say it nicely and make you feel as though you weren't quite insane for asking, but the answer was always the same: "You are batshit crazy, thanks for playing, please never contact us again."

"The truth is..." Viola began again, looking as though every word were more painful than childbirth. She appeared ready to drop the bomb.

"My mom is going to be so pissed. I got sweat on my school uniform."

"Seriously, I don't even want to play soccer now. I'm signing up for golf next year."

"I thought this was supposed to be fun? And why aren't there any boys here?"

Viola and I both looked up to see that somehow the loudest-ever group of girls had managed to sneak up on us without trying, and now stood over us, voicing their weak complaints. We both stood to our feet, causing a few of them to step back a little and listen for instructions. Apparently the running had made them bitchier, but quieter.

I glanced at her and we made brief eye-contact. It was as though I was asking her, 'please, give me an answer, give me something'. I was well-aware that I probably looked as desperate as they come.

She looked back at the sixth graders, and sighed heavily. Then she picked up a ball and bounced it on her knee. "All right, I promise, I'll teach you the fun stuff now. Come on."

As she jogged half-heartedly across the tiny lawn, girls in tow, she glanced over her shoulder to look back at me. I stood there in agony like an idiot, but I couldn't help it. She shot me a look of apology, but for what, I wasn't sure. All I knew was that whatever her answer was going to be, I wouldn't get it anytime soon, with 36 little gossiping mouths attached to 72 prying eyes and ears that were following us every step.

I overheard Viola asking one of the girls to run and grab a pen and paper from inside the Center so that she could write something down. The girl was just about to the parking lot when I shakily called out: "Wait, it's ok. I'll go get it." I turned and made my way toward the double doors before anyone would be able to see the few tears that rolled down my cheeks, uninvited.


	8. Chapter 8

I splashed some cold water on my face and analyzed my current situation. Viola was definitely going to reject me in a huge, embarrassing way. Our friendship had been amazing and it felt like we connected in ways that I didn't feel with anyone else. I would have no choice but to go to prom, alone. My mother would likely insist that I reimburse her for the $2000 she spent on dinner reservations, limo rental, and my dress. Actually $200 of that I used to book a hotel room that she knew nothing about; a hotel room that I would now be sleeping in, alone. Oh yeah and the final kicker (I noted to myself as I looked up in the bathroom mirror), my mascara was running down my cheeks and my eyes were bloodshot. I was going to have to walk out there and accept my rejection from Viola while looking like a wet raccoon.

"There's nothing good about this." I quietly mumbled to myself as I dabbed at the black streaks under my eyes with a wet tissue. "I should have just said something about going as friends, but now I'm screwed. Screwed."

I heard footsteps from the hallway and then Mrs. Dobson walked in through the door behind me. She smiled faintly in my direction as she walked toward a stall and then stopped as though something had suddenly occurred to her. She turned to look at me in the mirror. "Are you all right, young lady?"

Although she had asked it with less than an ounce of genuine concern in her voice and ten pounds worth of gossipy curiosity, I attempted to appease her. "Oh yeah, it's foolish, really. We were helping the girls with soccer outside and... I got hit in the face with a ball."

Mrs. Dobson was all over this like a fly on a stick of butter. "Was it intentional? Did one of the girls do it to harm you? I could speak to her mother." She put her hand on my shoulder lightly, which disgusted me in its falseness.

"No, it was an accident. My fault, even."

She appeared unconvinced, but nodded and made her way into one of the stalls, leaving me in peace for a brief moment.

I hurriedly finished drying my face and removing all remnants of my eye make-up. Hopefully no one paid enough attention to my eyes to notice that my lashes looked strangely pale compared to how they were five minutes prior. On my way back to the lawn behind the Center I remembered to grab a piece of paper and pen from the community notice bulletin board. It would have made me look extremely silly if I'd returned to Viola empty-handed, since I came inside for that one thing and was gone longer than necessary.

When I reached the back door, I stopped and closed my eyes for a second. "You're over-reacting, there is nothing to worry about." I said to myself, pretending it would actually work to have a little pep-talk of sorts. With a heavy sigh, I pushed open the door and stepped out into the near-dusk atmosphere where Viola and her evidently obedient gang of sixth graders were quickly turning to silhouettes as they ran drills around the grass. She had her back to me and I could hear her voice call out patient instructions over the girls, who appeared to be concentrating heavily on their tasks at hand, dodging and weaving clumsily.

The more steps that I took, the more that I could feel my chest freezing up inside with anxiety. By the time I got to the edge of the parking lot, I knew I couldn't get any closer to her. It was like a survival instinct that warned me of impending danger; she would tear me up into little pieces with those sparkling green eyes that could stare right into me gently, and I'd never see it coming. At least this way, I had some form of defense. It was weak, and well-formed, but I told myself that if I kept a distance of 20 feet at all times then she wouldn't be able to reject me because we couldn't speak to each other. Now I just had to figure out how to maintain my 20 foot rule until tomorrow afternoon and I'd be golden.

I probably looked like a dick standing on the edge of the grass being very unhelpful. Viola looked over at me several times to see if I was going to come any closer, but I was not. Finally she pulled aside one of the girls and sent her over to me in order to collect the pen and paper; I tried to act casually and not stare at Viola when the girl returned to her, but I couldn't help but watch as she started jotting something down. My curiosity was pressing me to go and see what she was up to, but I knew that I couldn't discover that answer without also discovering her answer to my balls-out question, which was undesirable. So I stayed put, there on the sideline.

Viola had the girls do a couple of high-kicking exercises that seemed to really wear them out before she announced that there was one hour left of the session, and they could all have a break to get water or juice from inside. I froze at this news. She would be sending them in and the two of us would definitely be alone for enough time for her to break the word to me. Why was I becoming so terrified?

Within seconds, the crowd of girls had paraded past me and were bouncing into the Center at the prospect of more orange soda, which apparently was quite the kid-crack.

There was no need for me to reflect on this situation. Viola and I were alone, and she was walking toward me, a slight look of disdain and confusion spread across her face. I racked my brain for something I could quickly say that would break through the awkwardness, while simultaneously let her know that I had been "just kidding" about the whole prom-as-dates thing, and then we could laugh about it later, even though secretly I'd be tormented. Unfortunately the clever quip didn't come to me fast enough.

"Do you want to come over to Starbucks while the kids are doing their juice thing? My treat."

My mouth couldn't catch up with my brain, it was just too happy to not be hearing about what a crazy douchebag she thought I was. "I uh... yeah."

She smiled at me softly, and took a step towards me, weirdly. Then as though she were thinking the better of her actions, she turned away and began walking. I followed closely behind in a weak and awkward silence that was starting to feel like a bad habit between us. We didn't look at each other again until we reached the doors and Viola stopped to hold one open for me; it was a sweet gesture that I appreciated, but I stared at the ground as I walked in, despite myself.

The Starbucks was a bit crowded inside, as they often tend to be on weekends, never mind that there seemed to be 20 of them in a 5 mile radius. Fortunately for us, there happened to be no-one in line at that particular moment, so we had the chance to order quickly. The thought occurred to me that we probably weren't meant to leave our sixth graders unsupervised, but I chose to ignore that nagging question and instead assume they wouldn't mortally wound each other in a few minutes' time.

"I'll have a double mocha." Viola ordered. I should have known that she was the kind of girl who wouldn't complicate her coffee into something pretentious. She nodded toward me as if to give me a go-ahead.

I glanced at the menu and read off the first thing I saw, a pumpkin pie latte. Must have been one of those weird seasonal things they did. Viola paid for our drinks and then we moved down to the end of the counter to wait. I wondered why she was just standing there, and not mentioning the elephant in the room that was my asking her on a date. A huge date.

"Sorry the drills are so boring," she blurted out with a slight shrug.

"No, don't worry about it. I think it's fine."

Viola nodded and looked at the wall until our coffee arrived. This gave me a chance to observe her expression, and see that she didn't appear angry or standoffish, simply a bit tense and confused, if I had to guess. I couldn't really know for sure, but something in her eyes seemed more thoughtful than usual. Maybe she was trying to decide whether she should ignore me for the rest of her life, or for only about ten years?

We took our hot coffees (a relief to my chilling hands as the sun began to set), and headed back across the street to the center. Our timing was impeccable and the girls had just begun to shuffle their way into the lawn for round two of drills. Clearly the carbonated orange beast had not yet begun to rise up evil within them because they still appeared normal and calm. Almost like regular people, or something.

Viola had them stretch all over again so that they wouldn't go puking their guts out all over their shoes. I took up temporary residency about 30 feet away from her this time, not intending for it to happen that way exactly, but welcoming the space as it allowed me to ignore all the weirdness between us. When the girls finished stretching, she had them practice bringing the stationary ball up off the ground to bounce in on their knees like giant hacky sacks. I'd seen members of the Illyria team do that before, but I never understood how that helped them in a real game. Maybe she was just stalling them while she pulled out her pen and paper, scribbling away once more.

After a few minutes she folded up her paper and handed it to one of the girls, who promptly brought it over to me. The blood seemed to rush from my head for a second as I accepted it, now understanding what she had been over there doing all this time. Instead of telling me to my face, she had written down her answer, and likely her reasons why she wanted me to never speak to her again for the rest of our lives. Sure, that probably made it easier for her, but for me it was a clusterfuck of damage. I could open it with her standing there gaging my reaction, like a voyeur just ready to unfold horrifying drama. Or I could do the sensible thing, and shove it in my pocket for later, which was exactly what I did.

Viola watched me do this with a slight look that echoed disappointment, but was impossible to read. She took a drink of her mocha before turning her eyes back to the girls, some of whom were making a show of trying to kick each other. "All right, good job," she called out over them half-heartedly, "now who wants to learn how to kick some goals?"

They cheered enthusiastically and began to jump around, high-fiving and laughing. Viola instructed them to get set-up in groups of four and stand in a cross formation. While they shuffled around, she jogged over to me, tossing up a soccer ball and catching it as she did.

"Hey," she said with a nod to me.

"Looks like they're enjoying this." I deadpanned.

Vi glanced at the girls. "Yeah, they're not complaining. Seems like they get into the goal-kicking thing."

"Scoring is the fun part, right?"

"Well I've always thought so." The first smile of the hour brought to you by Viola's knack for double entendres. "So, probably good if you read that later. Makes more sense."

"Yeah." I wasn't sure what else to say to that. Everything was vague enough already.

"Are you feeling ok? Or do you want to go, or something?"

I did want to go. Go and puke my heart out. "Nah, it's fine. Sorry I'm not more helpful."

"Don't worry about it, I'm still glad you're here. Besides, not like this is hard work or anything."

Some of the girls announced impatiently that they were ready, in position, and waiting. Viola rolled her eyes at me as if to say 'here we go', and threw her ball toward a group of four. She related the directions for goal kicking to them, and did a quick demonstration, but this time she didn't leave my side. We stayed that way, standing next to each other without speaking, until the hour was through. I drank my latte and watched her instruct the girls helpfully. When it was time to go, one of the Junior League mothers came out to retrieve them and take them to where their parents would be picking them up, so Viola and I quietly began our walk back to my car.

"It went well." I was surprised to see my breath in the air in front of me as I spoke.

"Yeah, it was good. None of those girls will ever play soccer, but maybe it will help them move faster at tennis, or golf."

I scrunched my nose up at this, but didn't mention anything about how I played tennis and golf. Neither one of us said anything further until we got into the car and I asked if she minded me turning the heater on full blast. She was distant, but unopposed.

As I pulled out of the parking lot, she sighed with a bit of a tortured expression. "Do you want to come hang out tonight still? Since we're going to my house, anyway. And you have to change back into your own clothes there, anyway. And I rented _Hairspray_ , anyway."

I half-faked a smile (the real half was due to the way she managed to take something normal and say it in the silliest and cutest possible way), and managed to nod in approval. "Yeah, if you want. I still want to." Inside, I wondered how this would give me a chance to read her note in privacy and avoid any kind of traumatizing drama (trauma-drama?), but I resolved that if she still wanted to hang out, it likely meant she wasn't hoping for me to disappear off the face of the earth.

When we pulled up to her house, I was surprised to see that it looked dark inside, but then I remembered that Daphne was probably staying behind at the Center with the other moms to make sure that all the girls got picked up. Viola grabbed her duffel bag and dug around inside the front pocket for her keys. Unfortunately I felt even colder now that I'd just started getting used to my car heater and was suddenly outside once again.

"How's that dance working out for you?" Viola remarked with a raised eyebrow.

I realized that I had been bouncing back and forth subconsciously to warm my legs. "It's fighting off the shock to my system. Do you think this is some kind of fluke where we get snow out of it?"

She grinned. "If there's snow, sign me up... aha!" She revealed her keys proudly and started quickly for the front door. I followed suit, eager to get inside the house and begin warming up. Unfortunately I discovered as soon as we crossed the threshold, that the house was not any warmer at all, and my expectations were shattered.

"Shit," Viola sighed, "my mom must have been so busy ushering out all her friends that she forgot to flip on the furnace. Don't worry, it will only take a few minutes to get going."

I nodded, wiggling around in my skin with clattering teeth like some kind of spastic. She sprinted out to the next room, calling out to me over her shoulder that the basement would get hot the fastest. I didn't wait to figure out why exactly this was (despite the fact that it seemed backwards somehow), and headed down the stairs.

When I'd been dating Sebastian we rarely hung out in the Hastings' basement, even though I'd always thought of it as the kind of place I wish I had in my house to bring friends over and hang out in. The electronic equipment was lacking – the TV was from the 70's or something and had one of those built-in wood cabinets that were popular before people actually needed to plug things in to their sets. There also was a funny smell, and some of the steps squeaked as you stepped on them which made things precarious. But these were the basement's only short-comings, and it made up for them tenfold with amazing décor and the greatest, comfiest couch to ever grace a hang-out room. I figured it must have been Mr. Hastings' little hide-away when he couldn't stand his wife, because he'd installed an enormous bar with plenty of those retro neon signs that read things like "Ask for Bud here" and "It's Mountain Time with Coors". There was, of course, a pool table and a dart board, and even a pinball machine that took 10 cent coins. I felt like I could take my laptop down there, grab a beer and some friends, and forget to come out until summer.

Viola hopped down the steps, pulling me out of my daydreams. "Sorry it's freezing, it will get better quick though. The furnace is behind those boards over there," she pointed toward a storage area beyond the bar, "so it should heat right up."

"Thank you, it feels a little better down here already."

She nodded and handed me my clothes, along with a sweater that I didn't recognize. "I grabbed these for you, the sweater might help. If you want to change, there's actually a bathroom behind the stairs... but I don't think the toilet flushes."

I thanked her again and took the clothes, heading into the bathroom as she flopped down on the couch and started to watch TV. I flipped on the light and closed the door behind me. It was more like a utility closet than a bathroom, but at least there was a mirror and enough space to change. It surprised me at first to see my reflection; I had forgotten about taking off all my eye make-up a few hours before, and I didn't expect to see myself without it.

As rapidly as I could, I got out of the borrowed sports clothing and back into mine, pulling on the sweater last. It was definitely warm and snuggly, amplified by the fact that it smelled very much like a certain green-eyed soccer player. I pulled the bottom hem up to my face and breathed it in deeply. It was my last happy action before it came time to do the very thing I was dreading most.

"Ok, suck it up," I whispered with a sigh, reaching into the pocket of the discarded shorts and retrieving the note.

My first reaction as I opened it was that it looked nearly to scribbly to read, but then I remembered she had been using her other hand as a clipboard to write on when we were out there on the grass. I squinted hard and did my best to make out the words.

_Olivia_

_Thank you for asking me to go with you, I know it must have been weird/hard. I'm sorry I don't know how to say this to you or give you an answer to your face. There's a lot I want to say but I think I'd lose my nerve. The simple thing is this: I swore to myself that I would never be Seb again no matter what. It pisses me off that he ditched you but if I try to fix that by pretending to be him I will betray myself. I don't want to turn you down, but I have to. I'm so sorry. Please don't hate me. But you probably will. I just hope you don't._

She hadn't signed it, but she didn't need to, of course.

I stared at it for a minute. I couldn't say that I didn't expect it, but in a way, I still felt very surprised. She had used her brother as her excuse not to go with me, something that I didn't understand, and thought maybe she knew my motives better than I did. The thought of her going as her brother had occurred to me, but I knew it wasn't Sebastian that I wanted there at my prom, on the biggest night of my high school existence. I hadn't been asking her to go as anyone else but herself, but maybe that misunderstanding didn't even matter to her, and the bottom line was that she had said "no".

I put the note back into the pocket of the shorts and opened the bathroom door slowly. I could see her lounging casually, watching I Love Lucy and giggling quietly. I resolved that even though she may not have conveyed all of her motives or reasons to me, she had made the effort to note how important it was that we stay friends and I not 'hate her'. The least I could do was just go on acting like everything was normal to reward her for her honesty, and keep her friendship I was so certain I was about to lose.

Our friendship.

Why was it that I was scared to death of losing it, but now that I knew it was safe, I felt so unsatisfied?

I would take what I would get, and not push her for any more answers, even if I did think she had misunderstood me when I'd asked her. It was too much of a risk without enough to gain. This was my stubborn attitude as I took a place next to her on the couch (aka comfiest couch in the world), and set her jersey and shorts on the coffee table. Viola looked at me and smiled with gentleness in her eyes. It wasn't everything that I'd hoped for, but I would take it.


End file.
